The View from DownUnder Pt 1. '97 by Bob Gabri Melbourne holds it's second Formula One and I decided to make it two for two. Once is just not enough for this race fan and the lure of the country is overwhelming. To bring a few folks up to speed on this thing, last October I had my travel agent start to look for a motel for me. After searching for two weeks, she was not able to find a thing, including the places that cost over $160 a night. It was starting to look bad so I called a friend in Australia and asked him if he could help me find a room. He called me back two weeks later with good news. Not only had he found a place for me, but it would be only $55 per night. Because it was the week of the race, he had to pay for the cost of the room up front. This is great, my friends have already reserved a room for me and all I have to do is show up. As usual, my plane ride is twenty four hours in length and I am unable to sleep during this time. Knowing this ahead of time, I purchased a laptop computer so that I can do some work during my non sleep mode. Doing some financial work and writing this article on the plane is a very good start. In the middle of the night, I attempt some sleep. It only partly works but I wake up with a pain in my knee. Arriving at Melbourne Airport Tuesday morning was the usual hour long wait going through immigration and customs. Another friend of mine there picked me up at the airport and I was soon to discover that my luggage had been damaged on the flight. Rather than take my luggage to the motel, empty it and return, I decide to empty it into Doug's trunk. I was promptly surprised to discover that my bottle of sunscreen lotion was broken open and it's contents were spilled all over the inside of my luggage. This on top of the constant ache that I was getting from my knee. After arriving in my apartment, my first order of business was a good nap, much needed after being wide awake since Sunday. When I awoke at 10:00PM, it was time to unpack and clean up the mess from the sunscreen lotion, including washing my backpack I use for corner working. I scrubbed it with a bar of soap and my hairbrush. With Wednesday's arrival, I was still experiencing the pain in my knee, but now the swelling was getting greater and it was becoming red. With the recommendation of the medical staff at the Grand Prix, I went to the emergency room at the nearest hospital to have my problem looked at. In no time at all I was in a horizontal position having people waiting on me hand and foot. It was an infection in my knee that had started on the plane, and because of the trauma of the flight, my immune system failed to fight it off. I had a very good doctor there and he realized that I really wanted to be at the race. With this in mind, he gave me stronger doses of antibiotics in the hope of getting me back on my feet sooner. I was hoping that I could work at least one day of the race. His plan worked and I was discharged on Thursday evening, missing only one day of practice. I had no restrictions, other than to try to take it easy and take my medicine for the next two weeks. Because of missing Thursday's practice, I did not get my original assigned sector, but one at a much more secluded location. It was on a very slow part of the course with little or nothing happening in the way of accidents and/or off course excursions. We had the usual trackside inspections just before the Formula 1 cars came out and everything was kept in tip top shape. Even the stones in the gravel pits were freshly painted each night. There was something always going on every minute there. If it wasn't the cars on the track, it was Water Skiing, Hang Gliders, Para Sails, Military fly bys, Sky Divers, or parades of Exotic and/or Vintage cars. The Public Transit workers had been involved in negotiations with the government for the past four months. Things didn't seem to be going anywhere, so they called a strike which was to run for 48 hours, starting at midnight Friday night. All spectators had been told in the past that they had to take public transportation to the track because there was no parking in the vicinity of Albert Park Lake. Now that the strike was on, all trains, trams and public busses were not running. The government quickly called in over 400 private busses to try to get people back and forth to the race. This greatly affected the turnout of the spectators and it was estimated that the attendance was down about 30 percent from last year. From the corner where I worked, I could see many bleachers with row after row of empty seats. The Save Albert Park protesters were out again this year in full force. A week before the race a bunch of them got onto the property and poured diesel oil all over the track at sector 15, my post from last year. At first it was thought that that section of the track would have to be replaced, but a very thorough cleanup by the crews saved the track and there was not a problem there after that. When I got to the gate Tuesday afternoon to register, the protesters were attempting to block the entrance. The police there did a good job of keeping the gate open with only a couple of skirmishes before the end of the day. This was not the end of them. They held demonstrations constantly and made a lot of noise for anyone who would look at them or take their picture, the TV news crews ate this up. On race day we were again warned about the possibility of them trying to disrupt the start of the race. Besides having to watch the cars, we had to keep an eye out for anyone trying to jump the fence and interfere with the race. About 15 minutes before the start of the race a flare was set off by a protester somewhere. Now we had to watch for flares being tossed out onto the track, and if so, to just kick them off into the gravel traps. That was the last incident that we heard off. Extra police were in force and any incident that cropped up was just as quickly squashed. No problem. From my vantage point at an obscure point on the track, I saw very little out of the ordinary. All cars made it around the corner in fine shape and there was no passing or accidents where I was. It wasn't until Saturday that Jacques Villeneuve was finally able to capture the pole position. The previous two days it had changed hands frequently. Damon Hill was driving his backup car, but I do not know why. Just before the start of the race, all cars made a final lap or two of warm-up to make sure that everything was to their liking. Damon Hill never completed his formation lap. Along the back part of the course his car just came to a stop and he pulled off. It was later discovered that his electronic throttle sensor had ceased to function and that was the end of his day. Everyone else was lined up and the race was off. Charging hard into the first corner Eddie Ervine came up inside Jacques Villeneuve and was going to fast to make the turn. He slid wide and forced Villeneuve to the outside and into Johnny Herbert, sending both of them into the gravel, and out of the race. Ervine continued, it wasn't his problem. Villenueve's teammate, Heinz-Harald Frentzen, took over the lead, with David Coulthard right behind him. Irvine went out of the race on the next lap with a shredded left front tire, caused by his nose wing cutting it. Now his problem. Half way through the race Jean Alesi was told by his crew, both by radio and hand signals, to pit for fuel. Trying to get just one more lap, he ran out of fuel at the corner before the pit entrance and that was the end of his day. The lead changed a couple of times between Frentzen and David Coulthard during the race depending on who had just pitted. At his last pit stop, Frentzen took an unusually long time and dropped back to third. He soon made his way back to second place. With three laps to go, his left front rotor exploded just beyond the Start/Finish Line, which caused him to spin into the gravel pit. End of what seemed like a great day for him. David Coulthard went on to win the race, a lot better showing than last year's first lap incident which sent Martin Brundle's car into the air. Of the twenty two cars that started this race, only nine finished. Oh, one more side note. When the doctor came to see me on my night of admittance to the hospital, he said that when he released me I would be on medication for approximately two weeks. I told him that one of the reasons I came to Australia was to enjoy their fine beers. I asked him if the medication I would be on would counteract with having a beer in the evening. He said no, it wouldn't. A half hour latter my nurse comes in and sets a bottle of Fosters on my table and says "Doctor's Orders." The bloke in the bed next to me looks at the beer, looks at me, and then looks at the nurse. He says "I want your doctor." I like it here. In next month's article I will tell you of my travels with my Australian friends the week after the race. We see and do things not done by the normal "tourists."